Better Days Ahead: Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
On March 4, 1865, when Abraham Lincoln was set to deliver his second inaugural address, it looked as if there were better days ahead. It was a foregone conclusion that the Civil War would soon be at an end and that the Confederacy would be soundly defeated. The Confederate Army was running low on able-bodied soldiers and on the supplies of war, and General Ulysses Grant's army was playing a game of cat and mouse with that of his adversary Robert E. Lee. Southern hopes for a negotiated peace were dashed when Lincoln was re-elected the previous November, and many in the north were calling for retribution. They wanted the southern secessionists to pay for dividing the country and causing the war with all of its needless death and destruction.
But when Abraham Lincoln spoke that day, he struck a more conciliatory and benevolent tone. His words were not resentful, nor were they vengeful. Lincoln would famously state that he had "malice toward none and charity for all" in a show of remarkable magnanimity towards those who had opposed him.
The day had begun auspiciously. Just before Lincoln was slated to take the oath of office as President for the second time, his newly elected Vice-President Andrew Johnson was sworn in, and Johnson was, to use the vernacular, "three sheets to the wind." A crowd estimated at around fifty thousand had gathered at the Capitol to witness Lincoln's inauguration, and before that ceremony began, a much smaller group of invited guests entered the Senate chamber for the first part of the ceremony. This included a farewell address by the outgoing vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, followed by Johnson's swearing in. Shortly before noon, the dignitaries for this ceremony arrived, which included a number of generals, governors, the justices of the Supreme Court, the cabinet and finally the president himself, whose chair was positioned in the middle of the front row. Mary Todd Lincoln was seated in the Diplomatic Gallery, surrounded by members of the foreign ministries, wearing their fanciest uniforms.
After Hamlin delivered a very dignified farewell address, Johnson rose to take the oath. His face was "extraordinarily red," he was, as a police officer today might describe an impaired driver, "unsteady on his feet." Some described him as being "in a state of manifest intoxication." For twenty minutes he spoke incoherently, repeatedly reminding his audience of his "plebeian" background and his humble roots. He told his audience that he was proud that one so humble as he "could rise from the ranks under the Constitution, to the proud position of the second place in the gift of the people." He then lectured the Supreme Court justices about how they received their "power from the people." Next he spoke to the members of the cabinet, and addressed each secretary by name, until he reached Gideon Welles, whose name he could not remember. He loudly asked someone seated close by, "what's the name of the Secretary of the Navy?" Johnson ignored Hamlin's request that he wrap it up so that Lincoln's inauguration ceremony could begin. Lincoln listened patiently in silence. Days later he would tell a friend "you need not be scared, Andy had made a bad slip, but he aint a drunkard."
After Johnson finished, the audience proceeded outside to the east front of the Capitol for the inaugural ceremony. Journalist Noah Brooks famously wrote that when Lincoln stepped to the platform, "the sun which had been obscured all day, burst forth in its unclouded meridian splendor and flooded the spectacle with glory and light."
Some in the crowd were expecting a speech praising recent Union victories and excoriating the rebels. Those persons would be disappointed. Lincoln did not gloat. He took a more magnanimous view. He called for a sympathetic understanding of the citizens in the South. To Lincoln, the differences between northerners and southerners were not insurmountable. He reminded his audience that "both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let is judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes."
Lincoln told his audience that God had given "to both North and South this terrible war" as punishment for their shared sin of slavery. He famously called for national reconciliation with these words:
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
When Lincoln's address was finished, the crowd cheered loudly, the artillery fired a round of salutes, the band played, and the peaceful ceremony drew to a close. Sadly, in less than a month and a half, Lincoln would be dead and he would not be around to lead the nation to the peaceful reconciliation that he envisioned.
But when Abraham Lincoln spoke that day, he struck a more conciliatory and benevolent tone. His words were not resentful, nor were they vengeful. Lincoln would famously state that he had "malice toward none and charity for all" in a show of remarkable magnanimity towards those who had opposed him.
The day had begun auspiciously. Just before Lincoln was slated to take the oath of office as President for the second time, his newly elected Vice-President Andrew Johnson was sworn in, and Johnson was, to use the vernacular, "three sheets to the wind." A crowd estimated at around fifty thousand had gathered at the Capitol to witness Lincoln's inauguration, and before that ceremony began, a much smaller group of invited guests entered the Senate chamber for the first part of the ceremony. This included a farewell address by the outgoing vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, followed by Johnson's swearing in. Shortly before noon, the dignitaries for this ceremony arrived, which included a number of generals, governors, the justices of the Supreme Court, the cabinet and finally the president himself, whose chair was positioned in the middle of the front row. Mary Todd Lincoln was seated in the Diplomatic Gallery, surrounded by members of the foreign ministries, wearing their fanciest uniforms.
After Hamlin delivered a very dignified farewell address, Johnson rose to take the oath. His face was "extraordinarily red," he was, as a police officer today might describe an impaired driver, "unsteady on his feet." Some described him as being "in a state of manifest intoxication." For twenty minutes he spoke incoherently, repeatedly reminding his audience of his "plebeian" background and his humble roots. He told his audience that he was proud that one so humble as he "could rise from the ranks under the Constitution, to the proud position of the second place in the gift of the people." He then lectured the Supreme Court justices about how they received their "power from the people." Next he spoke to the members of the cabinet, and addressed each secretary by name, until he reached Gideon Welles, whose name he could not remember. He loudly asked someone seated close by, "what's the name of the Secretary of the Navy?" Johnson ignored Hamlin's request that he wrap it up so that Lincoln's inauguration ceremony could begin. Lincoln listened patiently in silence. Days later he would tell a friend "you need not be scared, Andy had made a bad slip, but he aint a drunkard."
After Johnson finished, the audience proceeded outside to the east front of the Capitol for the inaugural ceremony. Journalist Noah Brooks famously wrote that when Lincoln stepped to the platform, "the sun which had been obscured all day, burst forth in its unclouded meridian splendor and flooded the spectacle with glory and light."
Some in the crowd were expecting a speech praising recent Union victories and excoriating the rebels. Those persons would be disappointed. Lincoln did not gloat. He took a more magnanimous view. He called for a sympathetic understanding of the citizens in the South. To Lincoln, the differences between northerners and southerners were not insurmountable. He reminded his audience that "both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let is judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes."
Lincoln told his audience that God had given "to both North and South this terrible war" as punishment for their shared sin of slavery. He famously called for national reconciliation with these words:
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
When Lincoln's address was finished, the crowd cheered loudly, the artillery fired a round of salutes, the band played, and the peaceful ceremony drew to a close. Sadly, in less than a month and a half, Lincoln would be dead and he would not be around to lead the nation to the peaceful reconciliation that he envisioned.